INTERVIEW: "Girl Hunter" Georgia Pellegrini

The Sporting Life:    Where did you grow up?

Georgia Pellegrini: I grew up on the same land that my great grandfather lived on in the Hudson Valley, New York. He called it Tulipwood because the land was covered in Tulipwood trees.

TSL:  What were your hobbies as a kid? 

GP: I grew up fishing my trout for breakfast and foraging. I loved using my hands, from picking wild berries to making wreathes from vines to knitting sweaters. 

TSL:  What did you want to be when you “Grew Up”?

GP:  An artist. A lawyer.

TSL:    What inspired you to become a chef?

GP:  The hours…just kidding! I thought about what I was doing when I was at my happiest and it was always cooking--so I knew I had to find a way to cook as often as possible.

TSL:  What inspired you to start hunting?

GP:  Killing a turkey for the first time with my bare hands, at a farm-to-table restaurant in the Hudson Valley caused me to re-evaluate my relationship to the food I was eating.  I came to the realization that I would either need to become a vegetarian or engage more fully with the meat that I was eating.  Hunting was the next logical step.

TSL:  What was it like the first time you shot a gun?

GP: I was more focused on the turkey than the gun. But I remember it was a very powerful experience.

TSL:  Describe your first time hunting and the affect it had on you.

GP:  It was exhilarating, visceral, surreal.  I was in the Arkansas Delta hunting with the Commissioner of Fish and Game.  The turkey appeared suddenly a few feet away.  He was so close it was hard to aim. Hunting reminds us that where there is the flow of life there is also the flow of death and that we are all part of the natural and unavoidable cycle of life. When I hunt I feel like I am paying the full karmic price of my meals.

TSL:  What is your favorite gun to take into the field?

GP: I'm not a gun connoisseur, I view a gun as a tool, the same way I do a kitchen knife or a hammer. To me, it's a means to bring my dinner to the table. The most important thing about a gun for me is that it fits my length of pull and not be too heavy.  

TSL:  What is your favorite game to cook?

GP: Axis deer, wild boar, and squirrel, depending on my mood. 

TSL:  What are your three most important-most used tools in the kitchen?

GP: A cast iron skillet (you never have to wash it and it works for everything!), sturdy kitchen shears, Malden salt for finishing.

TSL:  What music are you currently listening to?

GP: I have been on a Brit Pop kick: Coldplay, Starsailor, the Kinks. Also, Mat Kearney from Nashville. I have been enjoying some of the earlier Kings of Leon Records and my friend's band the Silver Seas.  Queen is a playlist staple, and always The Libera Boys choir when I am writing.

TSL:  Who are your favorite authors? 

GP: I tend to read the classics.  I adore Hemingway's elegant simplicity -- Fitzgerald, Faulkner.  I have been reading a lot of Faulkner, including a great compilation of his hunting stories that a friend in the Delta gave me.  No one writes about hunting like Faulkner.

TSL:   What historical figure do you most admire, if any?

GP:  M.F. K. Fisher, Ayn Rand, Julia Child, Theodore Roosevelt.

TSL:   Champagne and Caviar or Beer and Chips?

GP: Beer and Caviar.

TSL:   Do you feel that the ease of access to media and information has improved our quality of life, or reduced it?

GP: It’s complicated, it has leveled the playing field in a sense, for anyone who has a voice, who has something to say -- but at the same time there is so much sound and fury that it's hard to sort out what is actually timeless, exceptional, worth experiencing. And it often prevents us from tapping into our natural human instincts and living more simply.

TSL:   If you could sit down at a dinner table with anyone-living or dead, who would it be?  What would you serve?

GP: M.F.K. Fisher.  Quail en Papillote.

TSL:  Are you worried about global warming or “climate change”?

GP:  I am worried about change in general.  The climate may be just one of many casualties.

TSL:  If you could own any car, what would it be?

GP: I would love a perfectly preserved 50's Ford pickup. 

TSL:   What is your greatest extravagance?

GP: Travel and Jamon Iberico.

TSL:   If you could live in any era, when would it be?

GP: I like to live in the moment.

TSL:   If you could live anywhere, where would it be?

GP: I would like to have homes in New York, the Arkansas Delta, and the South of France.

TSL:   Whiskey, Scotch, Vodka, Beer, Wine, Sober, Tea?

GP:  All of the above, but in moderation, except after a good hunt.

TSL:  What are your other interests? 

GP:  I enjoy shooting skeet, riding horses, the occasional food safari, playing the cello. Is whiskey-tasting a sport?

TSL: What country is your favorite to visit/live?

GP: I love the good ol' U.S.A -- and I love the south of France and London.  And I love a traditional British bird hunt.

TSL:   What’s your idea of the perfect lunch?

GP: Charcuterie, some great cheese, crackers and a crisp rose.






Georgia's new book "Girl Hunter" is out now.  


You can follow her adventures HERE.